Self Care for Moms | Postpartum Emotional Self Care |

Hey beautiful biscuits, you might notice I'm feeling rather fabulous and queen-like. I was filming some Patreon videos about bringing a queen, an absolute fabulous queen in your self-care. So I thought, you know what, the tiara's on, we're just keeping it on for this video. That's how you know you're having fun, I do, I love it. So I thought, since I'm talking so much about self-care on my Patreon, that I would talk about, oh yeah, what's that, self-care, boom, uh-huh, here on the channel, as a mama, because my self-care topics on there are much more spiritual and physical and they all have a really fun relax to them, right? So I thought it would be fun to translate that self-care language into a mama speak, because, oh my goodness, it is hard to do self-care and to tend to ourselves, to tend to our physical, mental, and emotional needs when we are parents, right? That's kind of like, that's the big one, is finding that balance, you know? I'm definitely in a totally brand new season of my life, right, with another little baby, trying to find my footing and what exactly that looks like. And with my son, I just didn't take care of myself postpartum, at all. I was not tending to my physical needs, my emotional needs, my spiritual needs, I wasn't respecting that fourth trimester, and then the full year to year and a half after you give birth, in my opinion, from observing other mamas and from my experience, is a transitional time in your life, for your body and for your mind. I think it takes at least a year, and for some women, a year and a half, before you really start to feel back to, or back to, into your new season fully. I hate to say back to, because I feel like you never transport all the way back to the person you are before you become a parent, right? That's a really special thing, is that once you have been transported into parenthood, it permanently changes the way you look at yourself and others and care. But I thought I would kind of share some of my hacks, life tips, lazy mama needed to know tips. No mama's lazy, I just like that language, because I like the idea of mommies being given permission to say, I feel like I need to be lazy today. Maybe that's one of the first things you can do for self care, is not guilt tripping yourself when you need to sit and be a vegetable. You want to check Instagram, you want to watch a movie, you just want to not have to be on perform and be the caretaker. And it's really important as parents that we take some little bits and pieces out of our month where we don't constantly have to be on. And for a lot of us parents, I know myself included in this season, we do that once our kids are in bed, right? Once my baby goes down, right, she's four months, almost five months, and then once my son goes down, who is six and a half, going on seven, oh my goodness, he goes to bed after her, once they're asleep, I feel so buzzed that I have a really hard time falling asleep. So I lose like probably two hours of sleep a night that I could be sleeping, to just needing me downtime. And what I find is that it's much easier if during the day I have moments of that. So if you have a partner, if you have family members, if you can hire a babysitter, especially during the summer, get a neighborhood high school student, right, to give you an hour break a day. And you could be working on your side hustle then, you could be painting your nails, you could be going on a walk around the neighborhood, right, whatever makes you feel like you're giving space to yourself. And I know a lot of people are talking about how it's not space to yourself, like cleaning the house without the kids around isn't a break, which is true, but sometimes that's the space you're able to give yourself, and it's really important to not always have children dangling off of you. So you have moments, moments in your day where that's not the case, and maybe you can only take that when they're asleep, hopefully you have a support system that allows you the occasional time where you just get a little bit of time to yourself, right? I try to take that time in the afternoons, now right now I have a really busy season of work, so I'm taking my mean time to work, but where I've caught up on work and I'm not having such a busy season, sometimes I'll just watch a show, you know, every once in a while, before my daughter was born, I would just take a bath, right, like if everybody's napping or everybody's distracted by a cartoon, right, just take a moment, take a moment, where you kind of get to exhale, it's so important. I feel like parents live on this buzzed energy level that is so unhealthy for our stress levels, because we don't take those little breaks, and not everybody can, and there are certainly times where I don't get a single break, other than when they're asleep, that's all I get, but just embracing your routine and trying to focus and actually have you as a priority, which I know is crazy, right, parents, mamas, we are not good at prioritizing ourselves, we think, oh my goodness, no, would I ever buy myself a T.R.M. walk-around fit, ha ha, that's how I prioritize myself, but we've got to do that, because I know for me, especially in this season of my life, where my work is really busy and my parenting is super busy, that giving myself space and time is really, really important, and I don't lounge about for hours in a day doing nothing, but just moments, sometimes it's just getting to pee by myself, which is a rare treat, because as you know, children will follow you into the bathroom when you need to pee, and think, she's trapped, she's peeing, we're going to talk to her, we're going to try to sit on her lap, we're going to ask her for a snack, would she like a snack, here's a snack I've licked, would you like to have some of it, what if we start crying now, and you think, I just wanted to pee, give me 45 seconds, you know, and I will say one of the benefits to giving yourself little moments in the day to breathe, to exhale, is that you're going to get to know your body again. It's really hard postpartum to reacquaint yourself with your physical form if you're constantly just burnt out and exhausted and tugged on from every which way, right? I gave myself the gift of a couple physical therapy lessons, postpartum this time, I got, so far, one physical therapy massage that was huge, because all the muscles had just nodded, breastfeeding and holding baby, and it let me get reacquainted with my body, right? Your body is in a constant state of change and shifting and becoming something new, right? Especially during the postpartum phase. You know, our bodies are these incredible tools, right, that we build beautiful, joyful lives with, I mean, that's a beautiful, wonderful blessing, however you want to define the word blessing, but we aren't, and I think that we sometimes feel guilt and shame when we expect our bodies to be these decorative objects that never change and never crack and never shift and never move, and that's so unrealistic, because we're setting ourselves up for a lifetime of hating our bodies and of shame and of passing that on to our children when we don't take the time to get to know our bodies again, and to get reintroduced, right? You're getting reintroduced to your physical form and your mental form postpartum, so giving yourself maybe the biggest step in self-care is just getting reacquainted. Now another thing that I love, and this is simple, it's a little less deep because you're like, Rose, that was a little bit too much, is buy a new lotion, something super hydrating and fabulous, you know my love of just raw oil, but buy yourself a lotion that you love, and when you're laying in bed, apply it. I like to apply it head to foot, I'll just lay there, it'll be a calming thing, kind of help ground me and relax me, oh, I just apply it all over, and I feel so much happier and cared for, and my skin in the morning is so much dewier and smoother, and my eczema is so much better, because for me, postpartum hormones give me horrendous weak lung migraines and tons of eczema. Oh my goodness, my eczema gets so bad postpartum, so I have been trying to tend to my skin extra by far more than I normally would, out of desperation, because my eczema was getting so bad, it really was hurting, it was starting to bleed. So have that little before bed routine, it does not have to take you a long time, right? It can be six minutes of your evening, you're laying back in bed, just coating yourself, massaging your legs, you know, give yourself a little massage on your arms and legs and feet and hands as you go, and it just calms you down, just relaxes you, and it's a way to do physical self-care. It's also emotionally making you so much more joyful. I hear a wild monkey, I'm knocking at the door. So I will keep sharing all of my self-care tips on here for parenting, but I feel like, oh yes, I have been kind of ranting this week going on for a while. But I love talking about taking the time in our lives to make room for ourselves, and for the constant evolution and change that is our minds, that are our bodies, right? It's okay that we change all the time, but when we get really anxious and stressed out is when we don't give ourselves the space, we don't build in the space in our daily lives to respect that and value how we're changing, and to really take a look at that. So I think it's valuable, it helps me be less deranged, because I know, I think Pear was, was she two months? A month and a half, two months, is when I really, maybe she was even a month, between a month and two months, is when I said, okay, I'm re-evaluating, I'm stopping. You know, we did that first super newborn phase. What do I need to be able to build room in my life to be happier and be more relaxed, you know? Because I'm an infinitely better mama, infinitely better businesswoman, and a happier woman when I build space into my life to give me the room that I need. And it can be small things, it can be huge big shifts that sometimes we need to make, but oh my goodness, it makes such a difference. Okay biscuits, I'm going to see you probably in a vlog next time. Will we vlog around? That's my 3D motion. I'll see you around biscuits. I love you all. Thanks for coming along on the wild ride that is postpartum. Did you see my Instagram reel on postpartum emotions? Yes. They're all over the place.